“No, don’t. You look adorable,” Maggie added, before kissing one of her grubby cheeks.
Waggling a finger at Grayson as she passed him, the Countess of Cambrey silently left the room.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“That I’m dirty.”
He laughed. “She didn’t, did she?”
“Well, am I?”
He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and sat down on the edge of the sofa and wiped her forehead and cheeks. Lastly, he drew it across her nose, and then showed it to her.
She saw traces of muck and blanched.
“See,” he said, “not too bad. I’ve already asked Tilda to draw a bath. I know how women sleep better when they’ve bathed.”
Eleanor didn’t care for what that implied, that he knew enough women at bedtime to have formed such an opinion.
“How was London?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I barely saw it. I was on a quest.”
“Really? Then you didn’t go there for entertainment?”
Grayson laughed, a sound she found so alluring, it sent a shiver along her spine and caused a flutter deep inside her.
“You are all the entertainment I could ever need or want,” he told her.
The heat rose in her cheeks.
“Open the jar,” he ordered.
Chapter Nineteen
Swallowing, Eleanor triedto pull the cork out of the neck of the slender jar, but it wouldn’t budge. Thinking quickly, she used her teeth, causing Grayson to laugh again, when the cork popped free.
“You are a wild miss!” he declared.
“That’s what Beryl always says.”
“She’s right.” He waited while she unrolled the piece of paper with trembling fingers.
Thankfully, she saw words. “If you’d written this in some mysterious invisible ink like the map, I might have had to do you bodily harm.”
Still, he remained silent, so she glanced down and read:
Eleanor Blackwood, you are worth more than any pirate treasure. You have captured my whole heart, and I cannot live without you by my side, sharing life’s grandest adventures together. Will you be my wife? All my love, Grayson.
It was complimentary, but not flowery. It was romantic, but to the point. It was Grayson O’Connor precisely. She could no longer see the words for the tears coursing down her cheeks.
“That’s good,” he said, wiping her face again. “The tears help remove the grime.”
And how easily he made her laugh, which she did then.
“Will you answer me, Miss Blackwood?”
She stared into his eyes, reaching up to move a lock of his black hair off his forehead where it covered his brow, when he captured her hand in his.
